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I’ll be celebrating the reduction of humanity to mere chemistry and chance, like any good Darwinist. As if there were any other reason to worship Darwin, except, of course, the enjoyment of rampant sin.

I’ll be sure to shake your hand (and get your autograph on something… maybe?). AronRa is speaking as well, if I’m not mistaken. I hope you’ll give a talk before 4, though. I’ll be leaving around 4:30 because I’m reading torah at a synagogue in Boca that evening… I come from Judaism, and the Torah portion is my Bar Mitzvah portion… Dad (clergy) wants me to read it.

According to the 85-year-old pontiff, after considerable prayer and reflection on his physical stamina and mental acuity, he concluded that his declining faculties left him unable to helm the Church’s ambitious regressive agenda and guide the faith’s one billion global followers on their steady march away from modernity and cultural advancement.

“It is with sadness, but steadfast conviction, that I announce I am no longer capable of impeding social progress with the energy and endurance that is required of the highest ministry in the Roman Catholic Church,” Benedict reportedly said in Latin to the Vatican’s highest cardinals. . . .

My son pointed out earlier that today is “pancake day” (Shrove Tuesday, I guess), so I suggest a double celebration with free form (or fractal) pancakes shaped like islands in the Galapagos. Sprinkle with whatever sprinklings your taste buds are most adapted to.

Darwin was a racist sexist aristocrat who would have seriously been banned by PZ if he ever raised his head on Pharyngula. Have you ever read what this guy wrote? Jeezzuss fucking Christ, at least physicists don’t go around having “Newton Day”, do they? Try actually READING Darwin sometimes, and you’ll notice the resemblance to some backwards redneck bar crowd talking about the natural inferiority of women and the lower races of humanity. Yup, that cold northern weather made the white race superior to the soft darkies in the tropical zone, who just had to walk around pickin’ up breadfruit and fish, not like the vigorous strugggggle for survival in the northlands, but lets not talk about them creepy yeller-skinned Eskimos, what?

Yes, yes, Darwin made many scientific advances, and was a genius FOR HIS DAY – which, if you will recall, was the psychotic Victorian era? Get over it, biologists – this is no longer the 19th century, and the worshipful attitude towards high priest Darwin makes me fucking GAG.

I have to admit, I do like Darwin’s work on blue-light phototropism in plants more than his drivel about human evolution, tho. Or was that his son’s work? Clever fellow, no doubt, and imagine what YOU would have had to deal with, growing up in that Victorian era – when the mere sight of a woman’s naked ankle was considered scandalous.

Nate-
I was wondering about this neutrinosarecool idjit myself. As in, “xe must not realize that PZ clearly appreciates Darwin’s contribution to science, which was kinda big” (last time I checked one of the topics this blog deals with is biology). I do not see PZ holding Darwin up as a hero (in the way some people treat Columbus). In fact, at no point do I see PZ comment about Darwin’s character.

I never understood the idea of posthumous celebration of anyone’s birthdate. A birthday is an intimate event, celebrated by close friends and family during a person’s life. Those of us on the outside of this small group should commemorate a signature event of interest to the public. Under this principle, Darwin Day should be November 24 (the publication date of Origin of Species).

Anybody feeling compelled to celebrate me after my death should choose August 6th, the day I beat the defending champion of the Sanchez Burrito Factory in eating El Burro Gordissimo. Sure, I’ve had more fulfilling personal accomplishments, but I’m not exactly a Hall-of-Famer anywhere else. Not so coincidentally, it’s also my birthday.

Darwin was one of the Wedgewoods, yes THOSE Wedgewoods. His family were industrialists in *shudder* trade which meant they weren’t even vaguely “aristocrats”. And they had a scandalous reputation in their day; workers at Wedgewood factories were treated well, paid well and even taught to read at company schools. This was a dangerously radical step in those days.

Darwin’s contemporaries, particularly those who traveled with him on the Beagle remarked on how daringly egalitarian he was. When he needed local labor he hired it at the same rates he paid the English workers in the same workgroup. Yes, that included dark-skinned people.

As for sexist, well, once again he was a man of his time. But he was considered kind and generous towards women. In fact, he held off publishing for years because he felt it would have caused his religious wife personal and social discomfort.

In our day and age, even Lincoln would be considered a racist. Try reading up on him some time. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remember him and honour him for the achievements he did have. He was still massively ahead of the zeitgeist for that time. I was about to lay down some information which suggests Darwin was also ahead of the curve, but anuran has beaten me to it and is quite frankly better informed on that front than I am, so see hir excellent post on the matter.

And anyway, Darwin isn’t remembered for his social policies, is he? He’s remembered for a groundbreaking theory which laid the foundations of modern Biology. So you’re comparing apples with oranges and quite frankly being a pillock. Cease and desist.

Yes, yes, Darwin made many scientific advances, and was a genius FOR HIS DAY – which, if you will recall, was the psychotic Victorian era? Get over it, biologists – this is no longer the 19th century, and the worshipful attitude towards high priest Darwin makes me fucking GAG.

Calm down, it’s mostly poking fun at the creationists, who believe we literally worship him as some kind of prophet.

Under this principle, Darwin Day should be November 24 (the publication date of Origin of Species).

Or perhaps July 1st, the day when the paper by Darwin and Wallace was read at the Royal Society in 1858.

Darwin was one of the Wedgewoods, yes THOSE Wedgewoods.

Uh, Wedgwood without e. Even though you’d only expect that of the other side of the pond.

Try actually READING Darwin sometimes, and you’ll notice the resemblance to some backwards redneck bar crowd talking about the natural inferiority of women and the lower races of humanity.

I know, like that whole ludicrous book he wrote about worms! And that other one, the giant monograph on barnacles. And, what’s the name of that one book, the big famous one, Origin of SPecies I think, that nver mentions humans hardly at all and…

Psychotic, eh? You know, when you’re a dipshit who knows next to nothing about history or the social sciences, you might wish to remain quiet, rather than prove you’re a fool who gets overly excited over very little.